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eading alternative transportation providers may stake out their own territories or compete head- to-head in places, but they agree that managing students with behavioral and medical challenges
and transporting those served by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act begins with a focus on safety and consistency that provides a comforting sense of security for children and parents alike. Executives with four companies said a crucial com-
ponent of that process is the successful recruitment and retention of drivers who have the right balance of crucial hard and soft skills, including high emotion- al intelligence. This is especially important, since the 17th National Congress on School Transportation for the first time took up the growing trend of alternative transportation. The new section, led by committee chair and Delaware state director Tyler Bryan, focused on four areas: Driver credentials, driver training, vehicle design/equipment and special education policy consid- erations. Deliberated in May, the new committee sought to provide a framework to states on the use of alternative transportation providers to ensure student safety.
Editor’s note: Read this Q&A with Bryan discussing
insights into the new committee starting on page 26. The driver credentials section was purposely left open
for interpretation to allow for the differences in state requirements. Several amended changes to the proposal were to eliminate the starting age for drivers and defer to state and local requirements, as each state has its own school bus starting age, and to rely on state require- ments for medical examinations as well. On Episode 259 of the School Transportation Na-
tion podcast, Chris Ellison, director of transportation for Reynolds School District in Oregon, discussed his proposed amendment that passed, which recommends referring to state and local policies on drug and alco- hol testing, as opposed to following U.S. Department of Transportation drug testing requirements. Ellison said the proposal, as originally written, would have required even taxicab drivers to be drug tested and enrolled in random tests. Since NCST, alternative transportation providers spo-
ken to for this article reiterated their focus on safety. “The core of everything we do is safety. There’s noth-
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